Independent By Design: Art & Stories of Indie Game Creation

by Stace Harman, John Robertson

Genres: Video Games, Games

233 pages, Hardcover

Published January 1, 2016

Reviews

[Kalin · Rating 4 out of 5]

I loved this book, especially the anecdotes and personal stories. They helped me discover a few overlooked gems (though not as many as I'd hoped: either I've grown too critical, or my focus on powerful, meaningful writing in games condemns me to wait until a new generation of storytellers enters the interactive scene). More importantly, they helped me realize how great--and at the same time how accessible--indie game-makers are. Now I want even more to be involved, part of the thing, rather than just a keen observer.

Here're my more specific observations:

~ This is a good book, in a rather unexpected way. It's a book compiled by good people: ones with open minds and, even more importantly, kind hearts. While there haven't been many quotable excerpts so far (I tend to quote passages that tell me something I haven't thought about before), there's this general focus on values, honesty and looking after each other that I find extremely refreshing.

Okay, let me quote the book ;):

[Adriel] Wallick’s prevailing impact is found not through her being part of the game industry or through the games she has created. Instead, her legacy up until now revolves around how honest she has been about the motivations behind her creations and, vitally, how that honesty has given others the strength to realise their own ambitions.

~ Keep a cluster of eyes on Devolver Digital. Graeme Stuthers sounds like someone amazing to have by your side:

To have creative freedom you have to know that you have an exit from your relationships, right? For anyone we’ve been working with it’s on that game only and if they then want to continue working with us, then great. We don’t want to be in a situation where velvet handcuffs are being applied.

~ And keep an ear on anything composed by Jessica Curry. I've just started watching Everybody’s Gone to the Rapture, and the music draws me in even more than the mysteriously flowing light. Also, I'm looking forward to a soundtrack where no piece ever repeats ... wow.

~ As a follow-up to the above note (and before my memories become too hazy): Everybody's Gone to the Rapture is breathtaking, in terms of both music and visuals. There's a wheatfield in there, where every single ear looks different and sways differently from the rest. There's rain which looks like, well, rain, and there's the wet gleam of the asphalt afterwards. There's that candlelit path in the night which soothed me almost as much as Jessica Curry's music.

And then there're the human interactions. They were the only part that disquieted me.

Everybody's Gone... has a point to make--or several points, and they're all important. All the visuals, music and dialog snippets contribute to making those points, forcefully, evocatively. What disturbed me was the--I don't know if I can find the right word yet, but let me call it "narrowness" of these points. In a universe that is supposed to be boundless and full of infinite potential, they stifled and confined me, made me feel infinitely small--and not in contrast to the greatness of the cosmos. :( The whole story felt like a dirge about wasted potential: our potential as human beings.

Then again, human beings in Everybody's Gone become numinous in the end, so who knows ... who knows.

~ Reading through the history of The Chinese Room, I came across Jessica Curry's decision to step back from the studio. The blog post makes several poignant points; I for one would love to have more light shed on the relationship between artists and publishers.

Incidentally, a friend of mine just pointed me to a presentation by Daniel Cook about said relationship. Now I have even more reasons to "love" Facebook. Sorry: was I supposed to say "like"?

~ Oh my, oh my:

Both Ismail and Nijman [of Flambeer] attended the Utrecht School of Art and Technology, a university institution in the Netherlands offering a games course as part of its curriculum. It was here that the two met, and it was here they immediately failed to see eye-to-eye. Whilst studying, Ismail began helping out at what he describes as a “big commercial independent development space” ran by “one guy who made phenomenal games”. When Ismail showed what he was doing to fellow students he describes them as being impressed by the entire project and telling him that the creations were “awesome”. At least, that was the opinion of most of his fellow students.
“JW didn’t think it was awesome, he thought I was a suit and a sell out and that I wasn’t making games for art. JW would make 300 shitty things a year and call all of them art. He would say it seriously, though, it wouldn’t be ironic. I thought he was the most obnoxious hipster I had ever met. He was just annoying.
“All of his games were bad, there was nothing good about them and he would just say ‘well, you wouldn’t understand them’. I didn’t understand them, that’s true. And he didn’t understand what I was doing.”

First time I behold the power of conflict-driven collaboration. Totally not my cup of tea. :D

~ But still, you know:

Ismail does allow himself a moment of reflection as he thinks about his history and work with Nijman. “I’m very grateful for being able to work with him; I don’t think I’ve ever said that on the record before. I can’t really imagine what my life would have been like if we hadn’t both dropped out of school and decided that he can’t finish a game and I can’t start a game.”

Perhaps, then, the driving force behind collaborative creativity is the realisation that what seems like conflict isn’t really conflict at all. Consequently, this ‘conflict’ shouldn’t be censored, limited or ignored, it should be embraced and channelled in order to find that point at which a seemingly destructive force is given room to become a creative one.

What a fitting place to end our journey. :)

[bubez · Rating 2 out of 5]

Just a collection of faded Polaroids from a part of 2015 indie scene. The authors try to find a moral in every single story and half of the time it's forced. The stories/interviews might be outdated or just uninteresting; some of them are good, though.
If you are researching the indie scene circa 2010-2015 this book might be useful. If you wanna read it just to enjoy some anecdotes and learn more about game dev, it's probably not your best choice.

[Paul J · Rating 5 out of 5]

Illuminating insights into the state of independent video game development. Dives deep enough to derive meaning but is very digestible, never felt bogged down. A great mix of subjects and interviewees (Rami Ismail of Vlambeer, Introversion Software to name a couple).